Slippers & Sneakers
by Johnandsherlocksbitch
Summary: The story of Sherlock and John meeting in school and falling in love. (Rating will go up in later chapters)
1. Bored

Chapter 1: Just Another Day

The first thing you need to know about London is the weather is usually wet. This week had been particularly wet and dreary. A large storm cell had been occupying a large portion of England and it didn't appear to be leaving anytime soon. This fact was made evident by the sound of pounding rain and the occasional crashing sound of thunder that echoed through the classroom.

Sherlock gazed out of the window, watching as rain hit the window pane and slid down. Normally, Sherlock didn't care about the weather, because it never really affected his life. He was always driven to and from school by Mycroft, his older brother, in a shiny, black BMW. But today was not a normal day. Mycroft would not be acting as Sherlock's chauffeur today. An internship meeting had been scheduled for later today that Mycroft said he "simply must go to". No one else in his immediate family was able to drive him either. Mummy was giving a mathematics lecture at the local college and Daddy and Sherrinford were in Washington D.C. visiting relatives. So Sherlock was going to walk to practice in this maelstrom.

Bored! Sherlock thought to himself. His chemistry teacher had been droning on about how to balance chemical equations for the past hour. He was forced to enroll in the gifted program at his school because Mummy made him. Therefore, he had to take all the higher level courses that were restricted. It was all terribly dull and easy for him. However some of the students in the class, who Sherlock considered to be not completely stupid, had some difficulty in the course. The only student in the class who seemed to be paying attention was Molly Hooper. She was small in stature and shy, but she was actually good in chemistry. Molly occasionally went to the teacher for help. She was one of the few people he thought could actually handle this class.

Yet somehow these dunderheads were allowed in, he thought eyeing the backs of the jocks that sat in front of him. There was a stocky one directly in front of him- Sherlock was nearly positive that his name was Michael Stamford. But Michael had grabbed his lab partner's notebook when he wasn't paying attention and had been drawing phallic images all over the front cover. Since this had been going on for at least twenty minutes, the cover was almost filled with cartoon penises. Michael's partner hadn't moved in a long time and his breathing was slow and even. His head was being held up with his left hand and his elbow was securely planted on the lab bench, while he slept.

The teacher droned on with her dense Scottish accent. She usually was an enthusiastic and engaged teacher, but today she seemed completely out of it. Judging by the fact that she had only turned on half the lights in the classroom and was talking more quietly than usual, she probably had too much to drink last night. Her hand was shaking slightly as she added another number on the front of a polyatomic ion.

The sleeping jock had started to snore quietly. Michael reached across the table and pulled sleeping beauty's left arm out from underneath him. His head hit the table with a mighty thump. The jock started to massage his temple where it hit the desk. Sherlock wasn't sure of his name. It might be Gavin or was it George? Sherlock thought for a second and then decided he didn't care.

Feeling the pressure from Sherlock's gaze, Gavin the jock turned in his seat. Sherlock quickly averted his gaze and stared back out the window. Gavin looked at him for a second and then turned to look at Michael. Upon seeing Michael's artistic rendering of his notebook, he pulled the notebook covered in shrewdly drawn penises away from his friend. He then took the notebook and very forcefully hit Michael in the back of the head with it. The contact between skull and head produced a loud smack. No doubt Gavin would have gotten in trouble for this had the smack not have been covered up by a particularly loud thunder clap.

The only good thing about today was that it was almost over.

Five more minutes until Sherlock's personal Hell was over.

Four…

Three…

Two…

One…

The bell finally rang, signaling the end of school. Sherlock dumped his notebook into his black rucksack and then shrugged it over his slim shoulders. He reached down and slung his ballet duffel bag on his right shoulder. The extra weight on his right side made him feel a little off balance, but it was only a ten minute walk to practice.

After following everyone out of Chemistry, he made a quick stop by his school locker. He twirled the dial on the blue metal door. 30-8-10. He forcefully pulled the door open- it tended to stick. He grabbed his umbrella and closed his locker gently. After double-checking that his locker was secured, Sherlock made his way to the main door of the school.

The weather was still miserable. Observing through one of the inset glass panes of the door, Sherlock saw that the weather seemed to only be getting worse. Sherlock pulled out his phone to check the time and discovered he still had forty-five minutes to get to practice. So he decided he would wait for a little bit inside, until it stopped pouring. Leaning against the painted cinderblock wall, Sherlock opened an internet tab on his phone. Tapping the bookmarks icon at the top of the screen, he then selected an image of ballet slippers. This shortcut took him to the block of Anton Aminev.

Anton Aminev was the closest thing Sherlock had to a hero. Anton joined the world-famous Bolshoi Ballet company at eighteen and in less than 6 months became the male lead in their adaptation of the "Nutcracker". Sherlock had seen him perform twice on stage. After one of Anton's shows, Sherlock was able to ambush him and convince him to sign his playbill. Sherlock still had it framed in his bedroom. It was his proudest possession.

The blog was all in Russian, but even at the age of twelve, Sherlock was able to pick up the foreign language fairly quickly. Mycroft had teased him mercilessly when Sherlock initially came to him for the translation help. Sherlock then decided that he never wanted to ask for Mycroft's help ever again. Translating Anton's previous blog posts to English, laid Sherlock a solid foundation in basic Russian. Taking what he already knew, Sherlock snuck into Russian 303 and 304 at the local college to advance his knowledge.

Other people had started to form small groups on the other side of the hallway leading to the main doors. They were following his idea of waiting for the rain to stop. He retreated further back in the hall because he had learned early on that beginning near groups of people who didn't like him was a bad idea, to say the least. He turned back to his phone, scrolling through the blog with his right hand. He was currently reading a post about Anton's warm up techniques for increased flexibility.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where classroom 207 is?"

Sherlock continued to read until someone tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped at the sensation and looked up from the blog to see a blonde boy looking sheepishly up at him.

"Sorry to interrupt you, but I really need to get to room 207 and it isn't anywhere near 206", said the young man as he took his right hand and raked it through his short hair. His bright blue eyes seemed to beg for the answer.

"You couldn't find it because the people who designed this school were idiots," Sherlock sneered, "Rooms 100 to 206 are on the first floor and all of the rooms numbers higher than that are on the second floor. Take the stairs at the end of the science hallway and 207 is on your left."

"Thanks, mate!" The boy offered him a blindly smile and then proceeded to run down the indicated hall. Sherlock watched him go and decided he would use the rest of the time he had to wait to practice his favorite game: Deduction.

The boy was wearing a varsity jacket from a school that sherlock didn't recognize. He was probably a transfer student and probably a jock. He had tanned, golden skin, which indicated that he had previously lived somewhere that had lots of sunshine. Room 207 was where Mr. Baxter gave tutoring lessons to students who were struggling with physics. In his spare time he also coached the ruby team and judging from the boy's athletic form he probably wanted to discuss sports with Mr. Baxter. Ugh, Sherlock thought to himself, yet another jock.

Sherlock turned to look out the window. The rain had lessened slightly, so he put his phone into his pocket and walked out the main doors to the school. Opening his umbrella, he began his walk to the ballet studio. He preoccupied himself during the walk with a single question: Why did the boy ask him and not the other students milling about?

His feet carried him to the changing room, where he changed into his tight fitting t-shirt and tights. He stowed his bags and his dripping umbrella into his locker and left for the practice room.

"Ah, Sherlock. Start warming up now, dear, it is going to be an intense practice" said Mrs. Hudson in a kind, warm voice. Sherlock started stretching.


	2. John Watson

Chapter 2  
The next day, Sherlock found himself in the same situation as before. He sat at the back of his biology class and was watching all the students start to file into the classroom. Gavin and Michael sat in front of him and were chatting avidly about last night's rugby practice. Sherlock, on the other hand, was doodling polyatomic formulas on one of the blank pages of his notebook, waiting for the bell to ring.

It was first period with Professor Turner, who had the nasty habit of only appearing five minutes after class had begun. This habit was because she and her husband had a daily morning shag that left her late to work nearly every day. She had arrived early today. Probably had a fight with her husband, Sherlock thought to himself with his lips curving into a sneer. She had dark shadows under eyes and her mouth was held in a tight line across her face.

A television had be dragged in from the library, clearly Professor Turner had no intention teaching today. The Bell made its clanging entrance to the dull murmur of the voices filling the classroom. The headmaster came on the intercom and said the daily announcements in a dull bored voice. He was clearly reading them word for word from a piece of paper. He would occasionally mess up a word, but he clearly didn't notice or care because he kept reading regardless of the error. One of Sherlock's favorite examples happened a few weeks ago. The Headmaster had been announcing that day's science fact and had mistaking said the word "orgasm" instead of the word "organism". The rest of the class had missed it because they usually tuned out when the dull noise, that was the Headmaster's voice, came on and were rather confused as to why he was laughing so hard. The announcements were finished by the Headmaster wishing them a productive day.

Professor Turner stood and held a DVD case that had the words "The World's Oceans" stamped across the plastic case in plain black letters with a dolphin jumping merrily underneath it. The entire class looked at the cover and held a collective groan. There was no way that the movie Professor Turner had picked out would be interesting. In fact, it would probably put at least half the class to sleep, thought Sherlock. He started making bets with himself on who would fall asleep and approximately what time they would fall asleep.

All the jocks in the class wouldn't bother even trying to stay awake, so they would probably start to doze off as soon as the lights were turned off. The slackers, the teenagers grouped around the tables to the right of Sherlock's, would probably not sleep at all and start the homework that was due for their next class. The people towards the front of the class, "nerds" as the jocks called them, would sit and listen avidly through the entire movie. Molly might even take notes. Sherlock however would spend this period reading a book. He sat close enough to the window so that a little bit of outside light trickled in and hit the precise area where his book about the Russian Ballet was.

Professor Turner started to fiddle with the DVD player and after inserting the disc the sound of waves lapping an ocean shore filled the classroom. She pressed a few buttons on the remote and a monotone voice started lecturing about epipelagic layer of the ocean. Almost all of the students in the classroom put their head down simultaneously.  
A loud cough sounded from the door. The headmaster stood in the doorway, waiting to be noticed by the Professor. The Professor apparently didn't notice her boss in the doorway and had sat back down and started playing with her phone. The Headmaster coughed several more times. After maybe five or six coughs, Molly spoke over top of the TV and informed the Professor that the Headmaster was here to see her. Turner dropped her phone so fast, it was comical.

After achieving the recognition that he so desperately desired, the headmaster strolled into the classroom followed by the boy Sherlock had met yesterday. The headmaster proceeded to introduce the blonde teenager next to him.

"Everyone, this is John Watson. He just transferred from a school in Cardiff." The boy named John gave an awkward wave at this introduction. "Well, I leave John in your capable hands, Professor Turner." And with that the Headmaster turned on his heel and marched out of the room. "John, please take a seat next to Sherlock in the back and now we'll get back to the movie." John walked quickly to the only seat available in the room.

The movie started to play again. John turned to Sherlock and held out a hand for him to shake. Sherlock took his hand in his and gave a quick it a quick shake while giving a curt nod. He took that small amount of time to observer John more closely. He had a faint tinge of pink under his tan skin. He clearly wasn't fond of being the center of attention. John opened his mouth to speak but before any words could be uttered, Gavin and Michael turned around and began speaking to John.

"Hi, my name is Greg and this is Mike. I noticed that you're wearing a rugby jacket, what position do you play?" Gavin-no, Greg and Mike both leaned forwarded, waiting with anticipation for John's answer.

"Hello, I'm pretty flexible on what positions I play. But I'm usually put as a back or a half-back. I played as a loose head prop for a few months because my team mate injured himself, but I wasn't bulky enough for the position though and I hurt my shoulder." Just as John mentioned it, he rolled his left shoulder as if it still was hurting him. "I'm assuming that you guys play rugby, so what do you guys play as?"

"Greg and I play as forwards. I'm the loose head prop and Greg plays as the tight head prop. But, if the coach thinks he is too full of himself he'll put him as one of the locks…" Michael, John, and Greg continued on talking about rugby for the rest of the class period, while Sherlock sat there and doodle polyatomic ion structures on his notebook.

Sherlock discovered that John had not been put in either of his next classes, but they had the last class of the day together. Like before, John sat next to Sherlock. During the entire class, neither of them spoke a word to the other. The class passed uneventfully and when the bell rang, Sherlock practically raced to get to get out of the classroom. Unfortunately, the entire school was trying to leave as well. This meant that the walk to the parking lot would take twice the amount of time it normally would. He was about halfway to the car park where Mycroft was waiting when he heard someone shouting his name.

He turned around to see John pushing his way through the crowd trying to reach Sherlock. John was shorter than most of the student body so he had to fight especially hard to reach Sherlock. Sherlock felt that this was a preview of how John played rugby. Finally, John reached him.

"Well, what is it John?" Sherlock asked in a much more condescending voice than he wanted. When he saw John recoil a little at the tone of his voice he backtracked, "Sorry that sounded a little harsh, but I really need to get to practice early to warm up."

John seemed to be okay with his apology because he immediately brightened. "Oh sorry. I just wanted to ask for your help." Seeing Sherlock look puzzled he carried on, "I mean, I missed two months of school and I'm really behind in class. I was just wondering if you could tutor me or we could have a group study session if you would prefer. I really need to make good grades this year and I feel that dropping in halfway through a semester isn't doing me any favors."

"I'm free this Friday. We could go to a cafe and study, if you're free. You really haven't missed much. You seem to be moderately intelligent, so you should be able to pick up on the material quickly." Sherlock said cautiously. No one had ever asked him to meet up after school before.

"That sounds wonderful, mate. Thanks!" John smiled at him and then apologized, "I'm sorry, I should probably let you get to your practice. See you latter" Sherlock nodded and watched John walk off.

Sherlock started reviewing the conversation in his mind and once again started to make his way to Mycroft's car. A couple minutes later, he reached the car and tossed his backpack and ballet bag into the back seat. He then clambered into the passenger seat. Eyeing him up and down Mycroft stated that he was late and then slammed his foot on the gas pedal.


End file.
